Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

First time accepted submitter WIn5t0n writes "Just a day after the alleged leak of 12million Apple UDID's, both Apple and FBI have denied the story that Anonymous, a global hacking community, gained access to the files by hacking into an FBI laptop through a Java vulnerability. Earlier this morning the FBI claimed that, even though the agent cited in Anonymous's story is an actual FBI operative, neither he nor anyone else in the agency has or has had access to Apple device information. This afternoon Apple followed up on the FBI's statement, with an unidentified Apple representative claiming that, 'The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization.' It should also be noted that while the hackers claim to have accessed 12 million UDID's, only 1 million were publicly released. The Apple representative who made the previous statements also said that, 'Apple has replaced the types of identifiers the hackers appear to have gotten and will be discontinuing their use.' Even though neither Anonymous nor the FBI/APPLE will admit where the data actually came from, it does appear that at least some of the leaked UDID's are legit and can be tied back to current, privately owned devices. So far no information besides the devices UDID, DevToken ID, and device name has been released, however the original hackers claimed that some devices were tied to details as exact as phone numbers and billing addresses."

So Apple says that the FBI doesn't have access to UDIDs but a bunch of script kiddies do? Is this a really poor reflection on the abilities of the FBI or do Apple's PR people have an IQ matching the number of buttons on the magic mouse?

The list contains APNs Tokens (NOT "DevToken ID"s, whatever the heck that's supposed to mean). Which means the information comes from an APN-enabled application. Any app can get the device's UDID. Apple isn't explicitly involved. There wouldn't have been any APNs Token.

Whether the information was collected by the FBI, or obtained by the FBI as part of some investigation or whatever other means remains unknown, but I for one am really curious

or they did and apple realized their PR lately been pretty bad with whole Samsung trail which as each day comes is showing how bad the jury messed that up. Apple gonna say what ever is in their best interest as if they gave all that info to the FBI it would be a major privacy issue since its pretty much tracking millions and millions of people.

or they did and apple realized their PR lately been pretty bad with whole Samsung trail which as each day comes is showing how bad the jury messed that up. Apple gonna say what ever is in their best interest as if they gave all that info to the FBI it would be a major privacy issue since its pretty much tracking millions and millions of people.

More like Apple doesn't care about their PR, but they do insist they didn't cooperate with the FBI, the FBI insists Apple didn't cooperate with them and it's all possibly true or possibly false. If any of the released stuff actually works, it'll put the lie to both of them, which is as embarassing as it is funny.

What bad PR? The vast majority of consumers did not follow the case and were either blissfully unaware or apathetic about it. Apple hasn't in the least been bruised by this except amongst a small faction of consumers that use their spending to stick it to companies they don't like. If you bought an SIII because of Apple's lawsuit, then you probably would have bought some Android anyway. Even if those people don't buy an iPhone 5, there is a huge number of people who will. It's expected that iPhone 5 sales w

It has nothing to do with people wanting to "stick it to companies they don't like" and everything to do with Apple saying that Samsung's devices are as good as Apple devices and people listening and wondering why should they pay so much more for something of the same value.

Thank you for the links. The first link, a blog post by the co-founder of JibJab isn't really proof of anything; nor is a Forbes story pointing out that a number of people did go out and buy SIIIs immediately following the verdict. I should have been more clear. I'm sure there is some negative public reaction to the verdict, but I don't think it's substantial enough to have an actual effect. I would still bet that most cell phone consumers either did not follow this case, or didn't care. I brought up the to

Not true. I had 2 very non-techy friends bring the topic up on different occasions. I was quite surprised too, because this is not a usual thing to hear them talk about. I think Apple will need to tread lightly, or PR will certainly become a problem for their image.

The iphone 5 isn't going to be sitting on shelves. So I don't think they care what a few people say online.

Keep in mind the internet does no reflect real life. Most gamers claim to have Call of duty and bitch about it being unoriginal and full of angry kids. it's still one of the top sellers despite hearing so many people claim they're boycotting it.

So Apple says that the FBI doesn't have access to UDIDs but a bunch of script kiddies do?

Yes, that's in fact very easy to believe. All it would take is for the script kiddies to break into some server of an app that used UDID's for tracking users logged into an application that transmitted UDID's to the server as a kind of cookie... many developers used to do that, which is why Apple stopped allowing UDID's to be used by developers. It's really easy to believe a script kiddie stumbled on to such a list on some server.

The FBI wouldn't have a lit of UDID's unless they had some kind of official request for them, but then why only 12 million? Why would they be on a laptop instead of back in some server somewhere? I have no doubt the FBI could get such a list if they had a reason to, but really the UDID is of such little use to do anything with why would they?

In the end the thing that makes me doubt the source, the number of devices in the list is pretty small compared to the number of devices around, but is just about right to be the records from some application using the UDID as weak authentication...

A furious FBI attempts to tempt nobody and everybody ('Anonymous'), with a blanket denial, sniff, sniff, I smell a trap. Right at this moment the individuals involved have the advantage having sprung a surprise on the FBI, right now the FBI will be sniffing the network legally and illegally via the NSA to try to track the individuals involved. Now would be a could time to drop this particular game and while the FBI are so focused on it, 'peek' them some where else and keep the yucks going (although you wou

If these files had anything of any use to anyone, I would be suspicious right there with you.

But these files are basically useless. For around a year now applications cannot eve access the UDID or submissions to the app store will be blocked. In iOS6 it's totally blocked. That's the thing in the end that convinces me the FBI is not involved, because this data is of no real use to them at all, not even for keeping tabs of future mobile device use. And again, the number of devices they have here also makes very little sense in terms of being something the FBI would have collected - the FBI should have a complete list of hundreds of millions of devices, not just 12 million.

When things are confused, the simplest answer is usually correct. There is no simple answer as to how they were obtained from an FBI laptop or why the FBI would have such a pointless list of data, whereas anon skimming these files off some hapless server IS a very simple aswer as to how they have this data.

If it had names & addresses & SSN for everyone, then I'd start wondering. But this scattershot file of mostly useless identifiers is just pointless to risk the furor of Congress (who they will have to answer to if lying) to acquire.

That's the reason why the list is utterly pointless. It cannot be used going forward to correlate anything.

This leaves us with only two possibilities:

The FBI agent had the database on his computer just for sh1ts and giggles; the database appeared there spontaneously - it just condensed out of randomness of the Universe - because nobody admits collecting it.

Someone made that database for a purpose, and there is something that we don't know.

Nobody admits it is THIER database, but scores of companies (including for instance OpenFeint) are publicly said they collected UDID values. It's not like it's not widely known there are a lot of companies that used to do so.

Also note that if the table does not have the home address or the phone or the SSN of the owner then it means exactly nothing.

You are insane. If it had some existing values like SSN, why not store that data for everyone f they really had the complet

I was think of something along those lines too, that they found a list elsewhere and blamed it on the FBI. If so, it would be a rather epic trolling that should make many other trolls jealous. If they just announced where the list actually came from, most people would not care and it would get buried under other data breach news. But if they link it to the FBI, there are so many people in love with the idea of the US government being some all-powerful surveillance police state, that they will never let g

And why are you still determined to to take the script kiddies statement as pure truth? Most likely you have made up your mind who the real villains are and refuse to examine the veracity of of facts that don't support your world view. This type of mindless thinking only reveals your lack of intelligence.

Well, a complication here is that these IDs were obtainable from a number of places in the past when they were still used. For example, you could grab them out of photos or URLs created by some apps. It is possible that someone was able to mine a large number of these, as the issue was fairly well known.

Notice, this isn't being presented as a security issue. Rather, the big news here is that the FBI would have a list of these IDs, implying that Apple was helping the FBI track users. That could be the

I believe the new suggestion is to generate your own GUID on install and use that. It wouldn't identify the phone, but only the specific installation of your software on that device. If the device's owner deleted your application and then re-installed it, you'd have a new GUID.

They are used for identifying a specific device, which can be used in turn as a type of account id. Each application on the device is completely separate from the others, if you have an application such as a social network the user would need to login separately for every app. This in itself, isn't so bad, the problem is that applications can tie this information to create databases that might tie together things. For instance, OpenFeint was using the UDID for single sign-in. A researcher found that the profile pictures from Facebook contained the Facebook userid. If a user using OpenFeint was using the Facebook profile image, then that UDID could be used to find the Facebook profile. OpenFeint fixed that loophole immediately by obscuring the URLs, but the general problem remained, anyone could write an app to gather UDID information and many did.

There isn't any way that a user can stop an app from reading the UDID, a jailbroken phone can change them IIRC.

In response, Apple deprecated the UDID. Although many places have said that Apple rejects apps that use UDID, this is not completely true. Apple started rejecting apps that used UDID but didn't tell you. There are still many apps collecting the information.

There are a few alternatives, with varying degrees of success:* Each app makes a GUID, stores locally. Which works great for one-off apps, but doesn't allow multiple apps to collate data (either a benefit or drawback depending on who you are). It also means you will lose data on a reset.* use a different ID, such as MAC. Essentially the same thing, with the same drawbacks, not recommended.* Facebook and other networks have started using a Cookie stored in Safari. This means that the registration actually leaves the application and returns to it using a specially crafted URL. This way, each app can simply round-trip to Safari to grab the cookie. Complicated, but it works* Use UIPasteboard. This is an API that allows you to store information that other apps can read. It's sort of a hack, but some libraries are using it.OpenUDID [github.com] SecureUDID [github.com]

They don't. Each app has to use it's own, that way they are not the same across applications on the same device.

and what's the purpose of them anyway?

Mostly they are useful to permit specific devices to run development builds.

Over time some applications started to use the UDID as a weak kind of authentication, so a user would not have to log in or create an account. That's fine at first, but then you run into the problem if someone sells a device it would seem like the original user to the application.

Some did use it for simple tracking, to try and understand the chain of commands a single user was doing across sessions. I believe some advertising systems did use them also, and then they could use them to track who was the same person across apps... that cannot be done anymore in iOS6.

Can you override/deactivate them?

Before, no. In the new system if you delete an app it should have to regenerate a new unique ID (if it even uses one).

Someone's not being truthful about all this. Scary that my first thoughts are Apple and the FBI first over anonymous hackers!
So they've got a million from/somewhere/ then. If not the FBI, next logical guess would be Apple, where else could they be from? (maybe a carrier? Are they all on the same network I wonder?)

They could easily have come from an advertisement service like AdMob, or a provisionig service like Test Flight - many places. strange that the Apple statement was from an "un identified" representative though.

It could be from a 3rd party. Lots of applications were known to track UUIDs (and take phonebooks, etc). One of those companies could have given that data to the FBI (or had it taken as part of a search). Or the FBI could have gotten it from some criminal who obtained it by breaking into some company's computer. Or a rogue employee took it and gave it to someone.

It is possible they are both being 'technically' truthful. The filename indicated it was from NCFTA... so Apple could have sold them the data, and then it wasn't really the propert of the FBI so they did not own/have it....

Anonymous claims to be a bunch people with like aims and no leadership. So this may be just some person who happened to get hold of the info and published it claiming to be Anonymous or Anti-sec or whomever. The claim that the data came from the FBI is unsupported - proof would be some additional data from the same system such as logs, etc. which have not been produced.

My personal guess is that the most likely source is some social networking site and the guy is saying it's the FBI as some sort of disinformation. It's possible but unlikely that both Apple and the FBI are outright lying about the source. There are all sorts of other possibilities.

Anonymous claims to be a bunch people with like aims and no leadership. So this may be just some person who happened to get hold of the info and published it claiming to be Anonymous or Anti-sec or whomever. The claim that the data came from the FBI is unsupported - proof would be some additional data from the same system such as logs, etc. which have not been produced.

My personal guess is that the most likely source is some social networking site and the guy is saying it's the FBI as some sort of disinformation. It's possible but unlikely that both Apple and the FBI are outright lying about the source. There are all sorts of other possibilities.

I wonder who it is who claims to have Mitt's tax returns. The extortion attempt is out of character for the usual gang of kiddies.

With all the government scrutiny over the FB IPO, perhaps they traded the data collected by their iPhone app, even if this was obtained from a government computer? Possibly some similar scenario with a different company? These IDs could have come from anywhere, any app. Maybe AT&T?

Sorry guys, this should have been in the original post but somehow (whether by my revisions or another's) it was left out. First of all the Apple representative has been identified as Natalie Kerris. Kerris, while discussing Apple's removal of the UDID, says this, "Additionally, with iOS 6, we introduced a new set of A.P.I.’s meant to replace the use of the U.D.I.D. and will soon be banning the use of U.D.I.D.” . So currently all devices are still operating with UDID's, and will continue too do

Any old fart app can pull the UDID and send it to a central server. It does NOT take much to push an app through, grab yourself some UDIDs, Google the name of some random FBI agent with a very important-sounding title, and attribute everything to your 1337 skillz.

I don't know what's more worrying: the fact that people still can't grasp this concept, or the fact that people take everything AntiSec says as gospel.

This is the third fucking Apple UDID story in 24 hours. Can we please move on to shit that

That's not the allegation that Apple gave the FBI that information. They never said that Apple gave it over to the FBI. The filename allegedly stolen was NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv , which means it came from the NCFTA, not from Apple.

Why won't they ask Apple if they handed it to the NCFTA or that the NCFTA requested it? Then let's see what they have to say...

So, the FBI says "we didn't have that information". Apple says "The FBI never requested that information from us". Anonymous says "The FBI had the information".

What I'm getting from this:* You can't trust any of these organizations to be 100% honest, but they all frequently integrate a bit of truth with each lie, so you can't completely disregard what any one of them says.* Any, and up to two of them concurrently, could be telling the whole truth, but given their individual track records with honesty, you can't take what they're saying at face value.

One possibility is that the FBI did have the information, that they did not go about getting it through "legal" channels, and that Apple did not know that the FBI had the information. Anonymous "liberating" the information could be their way of forcing everybody's hands about dishonesty, government-instigated corporate espionage, and information security on a massive scale.

Another possibility is that the FBI acquired the information via legal channels and that Apple and the FBI don't want to admit it because the social and political repercussions. Again, Anonymous plays the same role as in the above scenario.

Yet another possibility is that Anonymous "acquired" the information from sources other than the FBI and are using it to rattle somebody's cage or play some type of misdirection.

In the end, data that was thought to be secure was made public, and this has put more than a few people's feet on the fire for it.

The sad thing is that it probably won't be known for sure who's telling the truth because each organization won't want to show more of their hand than they already have. This means that the problems that led to this, whatever and wherever they may be, probably won't be fixed.

It's amusing how easily scientific methodology is discarded for political convenience. You cannot prove a negative. The FBI cannot prove the data did not come from their computers. Even if they found a developer whose database of UDIDs exactly matched the 12 million compromised records, skeptics could always claim the developer had first turned the data over to the FBI, where Anonymous hacked it.

It's impossible for the FBI to prove they're not the source of the data. Therefore the burden of proof is

If hackers owned (in the domination sense) that FBI laptop to pull files off, then it could be possible to plant files too. While it may be typical for govt and corp to deny everything which plays well into the public's suspicion, hackers that have a goal of embarrassing both entities can plant evidence to achieve this. It is nearly equally believable that a hacker group might be in possession of these lists to begin with. I don't see what value a government investigative agency would even have in this d

This all a bunch of nonsense! This was probably just a list from a given vendor. Track this down by doing the following:

Look for the ID's and find the most recent date one that you can. That gives you the date range that this is relevant for.Look at the ID's and match them to locations? Are they all from the US? That might give credence to FBI angle (which I think is bullocks).Look at the ID's and start matching users.Look for commonality between said users, this far too large of a list of users to simply be a list of OWS protestors (sorry, if OWS was ever that large on just apple users alone OWS would have succeeded instead of being a punch line). Your doing this just to exclude conspiracy theories like a national we spy on people with shiny toys conspiracy theory.

Once you've concluded that there isn't anything in common between most of these people you can't start the real work:Start matching the common thing or applications between those users. You will probably discover something really benign like they they all have AT&T accounts that belong to the western part of the US or they all have the Twitter application or something really boring.

///sorry to ruin your conspiracy theories, have but have fun reverse engineering this

////yes I posted this earlier today but no one has bothered to solve this yet and it's still getting airtime.....

The actual official press release from the FBI, the only statement that matters, didn't deny it, it says "at this time there is no evidence". It was a non denial denial. Apple are simply trying to fix the non-denial denial.

But I agree with you, it is likely a rogue app, or an App with a very bad EULA captured the data. It is also likely the FBI got it as part of an investigation into that app.

Now they should try to match up the common app and then we will know more.

Oh the delicious irony. The faceless, nameless and unscrupulous... yet I believe them before I'll ever believe the likes of Apple or the FBI. See, Anonymous has no reason to lie. The bold truth is just fun enough without needing to embellish.